Fairy at the Feeders
by Persnickety Potato
Summary: What happens when a little girl (Isla Fisher) develops a taste for bird watching and starts spending hours perched at her windowsill, staring up at a trio of ruby-red hummingbird feeders her mother keeps in the backyard? What happens when one day…instead of birds drinking from the feeders' sugary water…she spots the Tooth Fairy instead? ONESHOT.


**Fairy at the Feeders**

Hairy Woodpecker. Hammond's Flycatcher. Harlequin Duck. Harris's Hawk. Hepatic Tanager. Hermit Thrush. Hooded Morganser. Horned Lark. House Finch. Hoary Redpoll. Hutton's Vireo…

Young Isla Fisher knew each one by name, genus and territory (and then some)! Birds were her favorite creatures of all, for they were brilliant singers and always gorgeously styled. Their elegant plumes, in Isla's eight-year-old mind were more graceful and enchanting than any outfit in her mother's collection of fashion magazines _combined_.

Each week, she'd choose a different bird to study, attempt to find it in its wild habitat, and photograph it. Isla kept a "scrapbook of birds" - as she called it - where every picture she'd proudly snapped on her Polaroid (from past watches) was pasted and catalogued.

This book was her most prized possession, along with her other favorite: _Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds_ - published in 1997 and gifted to her only two years later. (Best Christmas present EVER)! It rarely left her side when she walked out of the house, or stayed _in_ it for that matter. She carried it everywhere she went, including the dinner table. (Mom sometimes tired of hearing how ducks too would eat fish and their eggs, every time salmon was served as part of a meal).

This month, on the first day of Spring…Isla was studying the "H" species. Her very favorite among the eighth letter were hummingbirds, as they were the tiniest, cutest and quickest birds to have ever lived. Isla often daydreamed for hours as she watched them flitting about in her backyard…drinking from a trio of crimson-colored feeders her mother put out for them.

She'd grab a chair, sit at the kitchen windowsill (overlooking the deck)…palms pressed to her rosy cheeks and lovely red locks cascading her pretty (porcelain) face. The hummingbirds darted and dashed at each other, each one trying to be the first in line for a fresh drink of sugar water. As fast as they flew, they looked like blurs in the wind. And for Isla, they were more mesmerizing than any Disney movie or hyperactive kiddie program on TV. Hummingbirds were what held her interest…they had for as long as she could remember.

She knew everything there was to know about them: She knew that a hummingbird's brain was 4.2 percent of its body weight…the largest proportion in the bird kingdom. Because of this, they were very smart and could remember _every flower_ they'd ever been to, and how long each flower took to refill. She knew that hummingbird hearts beat 250 times per minute (at rest) and 1,260 in flight. They could dive as fast as a cheetah, at 60 miles per hour! A typical hummingbird had 940 feathers in its body, and babies were generally smaller than pennies…

These little blips of knowledge were what floated inside Isla's brain on a regular basis as she bird-watched for them. Today was an especially pleasant day. She quietly opened the kitchen window (so as not to scare her skittish friends) and let the warm breeze float against her face. Now she could hear them as the hummingbirds vocalized to each other in twittering chirps, zipping to and fro from feeder to feeder. Their nervous heads bobbed back and forth in between drinks, tiny feet clinging to their perches.

"I hope it tastes all right today?" Isla asked. "I snuck in some extra sugar for you, while mom wasn't looking."

She giggled, clearly amused with herself for being so sneaky. The girl's stomach suddenly growled. She was getting hungry from watching everyone else getting so much food.

"I'll be right back!" she promised.

She skipped over to a cupboard, opened it and grabbed a Milky Way bar from a bag. As she hurried back to her birds, she was confused to see them missing. She was only gone for thirty seconds! Where could they be? ..Isla unwrapped her candy as she wondered this. She slumped back into her chair and savored the first, chocolately caramel bite.

"Mmmmm…ouch!"

As she bit into the bar, the root of one of her baby teeth tugged and pained her…it was suddenly quite loose. Isla stuck two fingers into her mouth and wiggled it around in its place…it felt rickety and unstable. She didn't know how such a soft candy bar could do this, but as she glanced back outside the window, it suddenly didn't seem to matter anymore…

There she was: hovering mere inches above the middle feeder. She seemed to float in the air, wings gently fluttering as her lustrous coat of feathers shimmered like an iridescent prism or a hundred tiny bubbles squeezed together to make a rainbow. She was _magnificent_. Not quite a person but not fully avian, either. Her eyes were stunning and they almost glowed a bright magenta - a flock of long lashes blinking over them. Her tiny hands motioned to a bunch of smaller creatures - they looked even more like hummingbirds…yet they were still very different.

Isla's half-bitten Milky Way lay on the kitchen floor as her jaw still gaped open. How could she be seeing what she was seeing - was this a dream? Eyes never leaving her unexpected guest, she gave her arm a quick pinch - just to check…She was definitely awake.

Instinct took over the girl's vocal cords and she called out a name: "Mom, come in here _quick!_ You _have_ to see this! Hurry up, hurry up!"

A basket of laundry in her arms, Isla's mother jogged over to her daughter. "What is it, hun?"

Isla pointed a frantic finger to the window - her mom noticing how much it shook.

"There, see? _See._ It's a fairy!"

Of course, being the adult in the household, Isla's mother was unable to see the fairy in front of her own face - for she'd forgotten what it meant to _believe_ in such things as magic. (Adults were boring that way)…And magic could only be seen when believed in.

But, for the sake of her daughter (and her needing-to-be-washed-right-now laundry), she played pretend.

"Wow, Is. She's gorgeous, isn't she? I wonder where she came from."

Isla glanced back at her mom with half a look of shock, half delight on her face.

"I have no idea!" she squeaked excitedly. Her mother made her way to the laundry room, leaving the girl to her usual devices. The big fairy was drinking from the feeder now - she used her itsy bitsy fingers to reach into the red tube and scoop out a handful of sugar water. This she cupped to her mouth and swallowed.

"Wow…"

Glints of sunlight bounced through her every feather, tiptoeing from the green hues to the blues, pinks and yellows in a delicate dance of color. The mini-fairies that looked like hummingbirds (yet, at the same time, didn't) had very long beaks…or were they noses? Isla couldn't tell because they kept darting about the bigger fairy…what was it they were holding? The girl squinted her eyes and saw that her fairy friends clasped tiny teeth in their miniscule hands. They were the recently-lost teeth of neighborhood children who lived in the area.

Then, with a hushed gasp, Isla realized right away: "She's the _Tooth_ Fairy! ...Of course."

She quickly grabbed her scrapbook of birds and a black pen and jotted down a "scientific" name which (at the time), she _thought_ sounded pretty official…

_Toothiana Fairyatus._

Isla drew a quick sketch to go along with the title. She whipped her head back up, hoping her newly named fairy was still in sight. To her surprise, "Toothiana" was glancing back at her, a small smile playing at her lips and a shimmering glimmer in her eye. She winked at Isla, and then, in the very blink of an eye…she was gone (flitting off to who knew where) - her mini fairies following close behind.

Isla's heart felt full of wonder and joy. This memory was most certainly the best in all her years of bird watching. She would never again see the Tooth Fairy, but in the years that followed (even after she had grown up to become a famous actress), this brief moment in history would forever remain her most cherished, special and miraculous memory…for it was a moment that Isla Fisher, (diehard hummingbird watcher and fan) saw a _fairy_ at the feeders.

**THE END**


End file.
